I page through my journal looking for encouraging words to share here, but I find I’ve spent a lot of time worrying lately.
The funny thing is I wrote a book called Refuse to be Afraid, and here I’ve been — perhaps afraid is the wrong word, but I definitely needed to read my own book, the one packed with quotes like Tom Petty’s immortal observation, “Most things I worry about never happen anyway.”
I got so anxious that I wrote, in big letters, Jesus’ gentle chastisement, “Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?” and then copied from my favorite passage in Matthew —
“Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”
And wouldn’t you know it, God and God’s people came to my rescue to ensure that what I was worried about didn’t happen anyway. Someday, when I can put my gratitude into proper words, I will tell that story, but for now I remain overwhelmed.
There is always a path through the storm; there is always a sunrise after the dark. Sometimes the path is as simple as humbling yourself and admitting, “I need help.”
There is another side to H.L. Mencken’s wonderful quote that I often cite — “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary” — and that is that some of the hobgoblins are real, not imaginary. And most of those, of course, are practical politicians.
There’s another side to Tom Petty’s wonderful quote I use all the time — “Most things I worry about never happen anyway” — and that is that some things I worry about do happen sometimes.
Zig Ziglar said that when his guy did not win the presidency, he would give himself 24 hours to feel miserable, and then he would pick himself up, dust himself off, and say, “Well, this man is my president.”
Consider this my 24 hours.
A man who fantasized publicly about putting bullets into a political adversary and his children was elected attorney general of Virginia on Tuesday, as was a liar who promised a socialist utopia in New York City.
Words have a way of frightening me, because I think scary people choose their words carefully. The words the Third Reich employed were especially frightening, because they hypnotized otherwise reasonable people into condoning unspeakable horrors.
I have never said out loud or written down how uncomfortable I am about the agency named Homeland Security, because its name scares me. The word Homeland in that context is too similar for my tastes to “Fatherland,” the Reich’s appellation for Germany.
Similarly, I wonder why anyone would embrace a label like “democratic socialist” as if that was a good thing to be. The phrase is too close to “national socialist” not to give me pause. It was the national socialists of Germany who wreaked such havoc in the 1930s and 1940s. No nation should aspire to go there again. The greatest horrors of the 20th century arose from the embrace of socialism and its cousin, communism, but it seems that time has taken the edge off that terror and made those terms acceptable in civilized company again.
These thoughts are off-brand for a guy who wrote a book called Refuse to be Afraid, but I must admit I am afraid of history repeating itself as Powers That Be work to make our Fatherland secure and national socialists draw huge crowds. It will be different this time, the socialists promise. They always make that promise, history shows, and just like Lucy holding the football for Charlie Brown, once in power they yank the promise away to reveal their true nature. Perhaps those mesmerized by socialist promises are even too young to know who Lucy and Charlie Brown are, and they need instead to hear the old fable about the scorpion who hitched a ride across the river.
Of course, the point of Refuse to be Afraid was not that fear isn’t real or that there is nothing to be afraid of; the point was that we should not let our fear control our actions. And so I’m giving myself these 24 hours to fret — taking no action except to write down these thoughts — and tomorrow I’ll pick myself up and dust myself off. My only solace is that that man is not attorney general of my state and that man is not the mayor of any city near me — yet.
I got nothing new today, really. The best I can do is repeat myself. On the other hand, my same old, same old does bear repeating.
• H.L. Mencken summed up politicians of all stripes through the ages more than a century ago with his oft-repeated quote, “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.”
The political class and advertisers are taught to frighten as many people as they can, then present themselves or their product as the solution. When you feel afraid, my best advice is to consider why the speaker wants you scared, then refuse to let your fear guide your decisions.
• Sometimes you just have to pet your pet until you are unspeakably calm again.
• Jesus was asked what the most important law was, and he answered with two: Love God and love your neighbors. Yes, I said that yesterday, and I would repeat it daily until you’re bored and it sinks in, whichever comes first.
Darkness wants us scared and angry and suspicious of each other. Light shows us our common humanity. Darkness gives you the thought, “Yes, we have a common humanity but you don’t understand!” Light shows us how much we have to learn before we, ourselves, truly understand.
Sunrise comes later every day, and sunset comes earlier, this time of year. We have six weeks or more of this before the days start getting longer again, but make no mistake, it won’t be long before the light begins to conquer the darkness again. It’s always that way, and this winter will be no different.
The guy who wrote Ecclesiastes said there’s nothing new under the sun, and there’s nothing new in this blog post. I’m praying that maybe this time it sinks in.
